Does the latest video of a black cat in the UK countryside offer evidence there are big cats roaming the British Isles? James Fair investigates <\/p>
The West Midlands is the latest part of the UK to become the focus of claims of exotic big cats <\/a>roaming loose in the countryside.<\/strong><\/p> A\u00a0video<\/a>\u00a0has been released that is said to show a\u00a0\u201cpanther<\/a>\u201d\u00a0(a black leopard<\/a>, in other words) running through a field in the half darkness in an unspecified location near the border between Gloucestershire <\/a>and Worcestershire.<\/p> Local Martin Burford took the video a year ago, but has only just released it. He claims to regularly see panthers following the lines of the rivers, and he also took a photo of a lamb carcass that he said had been killed by a big cat.<\/p> But does the video live up to expectations and show a big cat in the British countryside?<\/p> BBC Countryfile contacted Dr Luke Hunter, executive director of the Big Cats Program at the US-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS)<\/a>, one of the world\u2019s foremost conservation groups, to get an independent view.<\/p> \u201cIt\u2019s a moggy,\u201d\u00a0Hunter says.\u00a0\u201cThe gait is very much a small cat\u2019s, not a leopard<\/a> or another big cat\u2019s.\u201d<\/p> Like many professional conservationists and other wildlife experts, Hunter is sceptical of the idea there is a population of large cats such as leopards in the British countryside.\u00a0\u201cIt amazes me that these claims persist,\u201d\u00a0says Hunter.\u00a0\u201cIf there were big cats in the UK countryside, it would be almost unavoidable that unequivocal evidence would emerge.\u201d<\/p> Some\u00a0strong evidence<\/a>\u00a0\u2013\u00a0though arguably not conclusive beyond all doubt\u00a0\u2013\u00a0did emerge in May when the DNA of a cat in the\u00a0Panthera<\/em>\u00a0genus was found on a swab taken from a sheep carcass in Cumbria. In 2022, a hair found on barbed wire in Gloucestershire<\/a> was identified as belonging to a leopard.<\/p> Persistent rumours of non-native cats in Britain go back to the introduction of the Dangerous Wild Animals Act in 1976.<\/a> The new law forced private individuals who owned exotic animals such as big cats, but many other species as well, to either get the animal properly licensed, hand them over to a zoo or have them put down. Many people, it\u2019s argued, simply let them go.<\/p>